Re: Missouri Virtual Public School

["Eric Crump" <crumpenator@gmail.com>]

Thanks for bringing this up, Peter.

I've been looking into this legislation myself. Our state
representative is on the House committee that reviewed it and held a
hearing a few weeks ago. Apparently there has been little opposition,
though I've seen rumblings of concern in the home school community.

Rep. Aull, who is a former district superintendent here in Marshall,
said he's cautiously supportive, mainly because enrollment will be
done through districts, districts will still get a (small) portion of
the funding allotted for any of their students who attend the
v.school, and the total enrollment will be limited in order to ensure
the v.school doesn't compete with home districts and so it will be
easier to monitor quality of education offered.

I talked to the deputy commission for Department of Elementary and
Secondary Education and he said oversight would be done by the state
board of education. He also indicated that the state was carefully
studying the v.schools in 14 or so other states to learn from their
experiences.

I don't know that this will qualify as a charter school. It's
definitely intended to be a limited alternative, only for those
students whose circumstances and interests make it a viable choice.

I'm going to keep watching this to see how the implementation develops
because the bill, as is usually the case, doesn't get into the details
that can make all the difference.

--Eric Crump